Sunday, July 10, 2016

How to Make a Bottle Cap Mosaic Chair

The cute little mosaic tile bistro set on our patio has lived outside in the rain sleet and snow for a very long time.

How long?

Long enough for the elements to take their toll and dry rot the wood base of the table and all of the chairs.

The thing I like best about the current set is the size and design of the metal ice cream parlor style chairs (minus the mushrooms.) I wasn’t in love with anything I saw in the stores as a replacement.

Well, when I can’t buy I DIY!

Recycled Bottle Cap Craft Tutorial

Pin this recycled bottle cap craft idea for later!

I am always looking for DIY and craft ideas that reuse and recycle our bottle cap collection. Husband and I have been collecting craft beer bottle caps since we bought our house and BCB - Before Condo Blues. We have a bunch of bottle caps! It's time to put those bottle caps back into creative reuse.

Disclosure: There are affiliate links in this post for your convenience

How to make it:

1. Take the chair apart using the screw driver.

2. Trace the chair seat on the plywood with the pencil and use the jig saw to cut it out.

The gold paint is a base coat of rust blocking spray paint I wanted to use up from my paint stash.

3. Paint the bottom of the wood circle with outdoor paint to protect it from moisture and the elements if you plan to use this chair outside.

4. Design your bottle cap chair design. I went with a circle of black, gold, red, and green bottle caps design on each of my chairs based on what bottle caps we have on hand.

Go crazy! Be creative! Change it if you don’t like it to another pattern! That’s why we aren't gluing anything down in this step.

5. Optional: Trace where you want each bottle cap to go on the wood chair seat. I did this to make sure all four chairs had the same number of bottle caps in the same place in each ring.

6. Once you decide on your pattern, apply a healthy dollop of construction adhesive with the chalk gun to the bottom center of the bottlecap and glue it into place. Repeat the process until you cover the entire chair seat with bottle caps. Allow the construction adhesive to dry.

Tip: This is when a long playlist of good tunes to listen to while you work is recommended! A couple of good movies to watch while you work is good too.

7. Mix the grout with water according to the directions on the package and stir. The grout in your container will harden as you are using it to tile your project. I found it best to mix small batches of grout while I worked instead of one giant batch of grout that would be too hard to use by the time I got to the last patio chair seat.

I used sanded grout for this project because the space between my DIY bottle cap tiles are too large for unsanded grout.

8. I went old school channeling my inner child mud pie maker and applied the grout with my hands. You can also use a grout float to trowel grout in between the bottle cap tiles. It is OK if you a little messy with the wet grout in this step. We will take care of that in Step 9.

It never hurts to cover your work surface with cardboard or a drop cloth for easy clean up during this messy step!

9. Let the grout set for a few minutes before removing the excess wet grout from the bottle cap tile with a sponge and plain water.

When your sponge gets too sticky from rinsing it in the water only bucket, rinse the sticky sponge in the vinegar and water bucket to remove the sticky grout residue. Return the sponge to the water only bucket to sponge off excess grout from your bottle cap tiles. I had to do this about a million times during the this step.

You may notice several brands have redesigned the bottle caps shown in this post.

10. Allow the grouted tile to cure per the directions on your package of grout. This may (probably) take several days.

11. Clean any rust from the metal chair frame with a dry metal brush.

12. Spray paint the chair frame with black spray paint. I did a base coat of whatever Rust-Oleum spray paint I wanted to use up in my spray paint collection. The top coats are black spray paint.13. Use the screw driver to attach the bottle cap mosaic chair seat to the chair frame with screws.

14. I had to mix and apply a small amount of grout to fill a few small gaps between the chair seat and chair frame. I could have avoided this step if I attached the bottle cap chair seat to the chair first and then grouted the bottle caps. Live and learn!

15. Spray a light coat of Rust-Oleum LeakSeal over the bottle cap mosaic seat to protect the bottle caps from rusting outside and from moisture seeping through the grout to the wood chair base. I used LeakSeal for this project because I bought it at a mega discount at a store closing sale.

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